A communications terminal, such as a cellular phone or a paging receiver, generates a ring tone (calling tone) or vibrates upon receipt of an incoming call or message, such as a text or an instant message (“IM”), to notify the user of the call receipt. A mobile wireless terminal such as a mobile telephone, for example, has a “terminating ring function” for informing the terminal user of an incoming voice call from other mobile wireless terminals or an incoming data call from various information providing servers. The terminating ring function includes various modes such as a vibration mode or a melody mode that outputs a ring tone to a receiving terminal.
A conventional mobile wireless terminal typically generates a single terminating ring tone designated by the user upon receipt of each incoming call. Mobile wireless terminals store a multiplicity of tones, melodies, or other modes, in its internal memory. Many cell phones support downloading melodies from a melody providing server via the Internet. The downloaded tones can also be stored in the phone's memory.
Not surprisingly, then, distinctive ringing has become a hugely popular feature with consumer and business telephony customers. Present day solutions support caller ID information that triggers the distinctive ringing. The distinctive ring is either network-actuated, i.e., the network sends the appropriate signal to the device, or is actuated by software on the client device.
On mobile phones, for example, the device interprets caller id information associated with the incoming call signal to play an appropriate ring-tone. A user may group calling party contacts and associate one or more ring-tones with each group or person in the device's memory.